Long Island Reinvestment and Planning Progress

OMH has made funding available for Long Island in an annualized amount of $14.1 million. Pre-investment resources will support services in several programmatic areas including Supported Housing, HCBS waiver, State-operated community service expansion, and Aid to Localities funds. The geographic and programmatic specifications for the services funded in this region that are listed below were determined through ongoing consultation with community stakeholders, including the LGUs.

178 Supported Housing units.

54 Home and Community-based Services (HCBS) Waiver slots.

Eight Children’s Crisis/Respite beds on the grounds of Sagamore CPC.

A State-operated MIT for children and youth.

A State-operated MIT for adults.

A State-operated adult and children’s outpatient clinic expansion.

Two Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Team. Two ACT Teams serving 48 and 68 individuals, respectively. ACT Teams are evidence-based programs that deliver comprehensive and flexible treatment, support, and rehabilitation services to individuals in their natural living settings rather than in hospital or clinic settings. These teams have been found to improve recipient outcomes with studies showing greater reductions in psychiatric hospitalization rates, emergency room visits, and higher levels of housing stability after receiving ACT services.

Non-Medicaid Care Coordination for Children. 72 Non-Medicaid Care Coordination slots aimed at linking children with serious emotional disturbances and their families to the mental health service system and coordinating these services to promote successful outcomes with continuity of care and service. While children with Medicaid may receive services from this program, it is open to all children and families meeting the criteria for service provision.

Child and Family Intensive Case Management. 18 Child and Family Intensive Case Management slots will promote optimal health and wellness for children diagnosed with severe emotional disturbance. These case management services will help children and families with linkages to and coordination of essential mental health services and community resources, allowing the children served to live successfully in the community.

Mobile Residential Support Teams to focus on transitioning adults living in supported housing apartments into community living. Once these individuals are living in the community, the Mobile Residential Support Teams will visit them in their homes to help ensure that their basic needs are being met.

A Hospital Alternative Respite Center to provide a viable option to inpatient hospitalization for individuals experiencing psychiatric distress. In many cases, an individual with psychiatric challenges might not require inpatient psychiatric admission, but could benefit from a break from daily stressors in a non-hospital environment that supports recovery and allows for a renewed perspective and wellness plan. A respite setting will not only prevent avoidable emergency room and inpatient hospitalization usage, but also provide care in a less stigmatizing and low stress environment.

A Recovery Center in Riverhead, NY to help individuals living with psychiatric diagnosis to live, work and fully participate in their communities. This center will focus on programs that will build on existing best practices in self-help, peer support, and mutual support.

Three Long Stay Teams. These teams will help long stay individuals transition into community settings through collaborative discharge planning and linkages to community supports. Mobile crisis and mobile residential support teams operated out of Suffolk County, and an expanded crisis program in Nassau County will work with long stays from Pilgrim PC.

In addition to these Transformation Plan services, OMH and the New York State Department of Health are funding the following services with $2.9 million in reinvestment funds associated with inpatient psychiatric reductions at Long Beach Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital, and a Pederson-Krag partial hospitalization program.

Mobile Residential Support Teams (6): These teams assist with discharge and community residential support for high risk individuals (e.g., those with co-morbid medical conditions and dual diagnoses of mental illness and developmental disability).

Mobile Crisis Team Expansion. Funding for additional staff and transportation enables existing mobile crisis team to increase its coverage hours to 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., seven days per week.

A Family Advocate to work in the Emergency Room and child and adolescent inpatient units to provide support, crisis diversion, and service planning assistance.

6 Additional Home and Community-based Services (HCBS) Waiver slots.

Satellite Clinic. Funding for a satellite clinic in Long Beach or for an agency interested in adding mental health services to an existing operation.

Onsite Rehabilitation Services. Funding for three different programs to serve individuals who have not this been able to make use of existing treatment services. The services would provide specific skill building to allow individuals to transition into traditional PROS programs.

Peer Counselor to provide outreach to high risk individuals. This peer will be able to work when needed with the Mobile Crisis Team, Hospital Diversion Program and other crisis settings.

Clinic Treatment Expansion for three Nassau County clinics:

North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center will develop a bi-lingual open access children's urgent and emergency services unit, and a short term intensive group therapy and parent psycho-educational support group;

Central Nassau Guidance and Counseling Services plans to develop an open access model of urgent psychiatric care focusing on stabilization to avoid emergency room and inpatient services; and